Our club night this month was our annual Gravity Shoe Box Race, below is a report by TONY JOHNSON. At the end of the very successful evening, Dianne and Ed Davies surprised us with the announcement that they will be moving to Worcestershire to be nearer the grandchildren.
A VIEW OF PARC FERME
Shoe box racing 2010 with the PWA7 Lincs Group.
Race day, and with some trepidation, we set out to do battle on the club’s ramp in The George Hotel at Leadenham. For a year Brenda, my wife, had been fretting that her previous year’s entry had not had the chassis development that I had promised, after its mediocre performance at the inaugural meet of 12 months ago.
With a sudden rush of inspiration, I decided to fit bearings into 4 plastic beer mats and provide a front suspension, capable of negotiating the newly introduced “sleeping policemen” on the track. We loaded the wheels to provide rotational inertia from the ramp to aid progress. A vernier adjustment to a centre pivot front axle was to enable directional adjustments during practice on the ramp.
Meanwhile, Brenda had enhanced her model of a RM van of last year, with windows, side and tail lights, wing mirrors and a chrome Austin badge on the radiato
.The track, this year, ran down the centre of the room, permitting much better viewing and more importantly, better access to the bar.
A brilliant commentary on the proceedings was provided by Peter Rowlands, who had threatened to do it in Welsh, but relented and did a passable English version.
Sixteen entries made it to the start, although this was reduced to 15, when “Bombs Away” entered by Ed Davies failed scrutiny, with insufficient separation of the front wheels.
THE WINNING CAR READY TO RUN
The range of entry was amazing, with superb model making skills and innovation aplenty on show, this was getting serious, and, as each entry was scrutineered and placed into parc ferme, they came under the control of Gerry Cock, the builder of the ramp and release system, our Clerk of the Course and Official Starter.
One by one, they sped down the slope, which progressively decreased with every successful descent, eliminating those who failed to reach the end of the track. Our racing specialist Andy Storrer managed an extra few inches this year, mainly due to the new kevlar helmet for the driver he thought! Nick Platek raised an objection that his racer had been launched backwards down the ramp and a second attempt was allowed, with an identical result. Obviously his racer was ambidextrous.
On they went until, after each had covered a total distance of 1375 inches, only 4 contenders remained to battle it out in the grand final. Diane Davies’s “Ruby Tuesday 69” just missing a place by a couple of inches.
Meanwhile, the concours d’ elegence had been judged by the spectators, using voting slips issued with each programme at the door, for the racer they would most like to take home.
It was a close run thing, with Stuart Ulph’s Brooklands Lanchester 40, (named” Winnie Prap Prap” in 1921), accurate in every external detail, and Ray Duggleby’s beautiful model of an Austin 7 two seater, with real leather seats, rubber mats, a full instrument panel, a steering wheel and four wheel independent suspension,( very advanced for its day).
Even with the obvious Austin bias in the room, Ray well deserved his win, but the VSCC guests boosted the Lanchester into second place and Brenda took third place with her biscuit delivery van “Bea’s Belter”.
STUART'S CAR ON THE RAMP
A technical assessment of the entries had been made during scrutineering, which included innovation, quality of build and clever interpretation of the regs and just one point separated the top three entries. Ian Bancroft (superb engineering), Stuart Ulph (innovative as usual) shared second place, but the winner this year was Cliff Ringrose and his “Easee Peezee”. This entry incorporated a pair of 7” 45 rpm EP records for front wheels, with fishing weights super glued as near as possible to the perimeter , for flywheel effect. Knitting needles were used as axles, running in nylon bearings, fashioned from fishing beads and, because the large diameter wheels were unstable on such spindly axles, a soft fruit can was used as a strut between them. The rear wheels used CD’s, which appeared to be the wheel of choice on the night for many of the entries. Brenda came fourth.
Back to the race. After five runs, the finalists were the “Bancroft Bullet” (Ian), “Winnie Praps Praps” (Stuart), “Autojumbox” (Ken Poulter in his first race) and “Bea’s Belter” (Brenda) .They returned to the fray, with the ramp at its second lowest setting, Stuart over corrected (radio controlled steering), loosing valuable forward momentum and coming to rest at 1636.94”, total distance covered on the night. Ken followed with, 1638.00”, a brilliant effort for a newcomer to come third. With the ramp now on its lowest setting, Brenda managed to reach the end of the track, but the brass edging for the carpet we used for the run-off trap, stopped her racer, which rebounded back down the track and resulting in a total distance covered of 1877.50”.
The defending champion and No 1 plate holder for next year was Ian, who’s Bancroft Bullet managed to clear the brass edge onto the carpet and a total distance covered of 1925.00”. This exceeded his last year’s distance, which he attributes to a change of driver from Mr Ping Pong, to his nephew, Mr Pong Ping.
So, a great time was had by all, some 60 people attended, including friends from the VSCC and new and more cunning plans are already afoot for next year’s event, with new regs available before Christmas.
We went home happy, with a 2nd, 3rd and 4th. Hey Ho back to the drawing board.
Tony Johnson
RAY DUGGLEB,Y IAN R BANCROFT, CLIFF RINGROSE
